


To the Rhythm of the Waves

by tsauergrass



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (the 2005 movie adaption), Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Mention of Past Abuse, Non-Linear Narrative, Pride and Prejudice References, a lingering sweetness if you will, because it is Harry Potter, because that scene is just Too Much, but all is well, cottage by the sea, just the boys living together in a cottage by the sea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23071567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsauergrass/pseuds/tsauergrass
Summary: It took a good while looking for houses. Time floated by; Harry liked most houses but didn’t particularly feel for any, so Draco kept sayinghow about we wait a while longer—eyes down-cast and cheeks flushed, pulling at the seems of his shirt, as though abashed, as though worried that Harry would find him annoying. Harry sat him down one day and, wrapping his hands around Draco’s, said, very slowly,It’s a serious thing, buying a house.Draco looked away, squirming.So we should do it very carefully.Harry pulled Draco’s knotted fingers apart and spread them, took each hand into his own. Folded, the way a knight would a maiden’s before he kissed her knuckles.We should take our time with it, you know.*They found a lot of things together: the cottage, the garden, their lives, each other. Then one day, Harry finds a hammock.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 24
Kudos: 278
Collections: Good Drarry Stuff





	To the Rhythm of the Waves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drarryangels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drarryangels/gifts).



> Darling, Harry Birthday! This is a little late and then some, but I hope it tastes as sweet as strawberry tea <3 It's so nice knowing you, you are always so kind and give me the best reviews that make me wanna cry and try so hard, so hard. It's all going to be okay! Wish you the happiest day you have ever had and the best year ahead of you <3

If he was being honest, it wasn’t because it was cheap. He’d just seen it one day, really, passing by the shop on his way home and glimpsed, through the clean glass panes, the rustic sign of a hammock on sale: white letters scrawled across a wooden board, all capitals and underlined twice. Underneath was a bundle the color of pale birch, rolled up tight with thick ropes.

Just a glimpse. But it stayed with him; passing the shop each day on his way home, the memories overlapped like layers of oil paint until one day, he simply went in and bought the hammock. Trying to get it home was a hassle. Twenty minutes later he gave up on the Muggle way and, making sure no one was watching, cast a levitating charm instead and carried it home, where it promptly got stuck in the middle of the door frame.

Draco, rushing out from the kitchen, stopped dead in his tracks.

“What,” he said flatly.

“It’s a hammock,” Harry said. Sweating, panting from the effort of climbing the steep, winding roads that curved through the hills, the heavy bundle relentlessly slipping from underneath his arm. He was so hot he had to take off his jacket, even though the April air was still chilly—then the jacket wouldn’t stop slipping, either, taking turns with the hammock.

Draco was still staring at the bundle, which was still stuck in the door frame. The thick smell of tomatoes thinned in the cold air by the open door, a hint of warmth. Of tomato soup.

“It was on sale,” Harry added lamely.

Draco shook his head. Flicked his wand, turned and headed back to the kitchen. The hammock shrunk and fell onto the ground with a heavy thump.

“Keep it in the garden,” he said, then disappeared behind the wall.

***

They’d lived in London before moving into the cottage.

It wasn’t bad. Harry owned a flat just off downtown, the crowd pulsing with each passing hour: surging into the roads at noon, thinning by three, surging again at five, struggling to squeeze into the Underground, and then thinning again by dusk. Friday nights were wild with Happy Hour and drunken teenagers, jeans too skinny and singing and screeching with laughter as the cars surged through the streets, headlights gliding pass the ceiling in Harry’s bedroom, a patch of light. He’d learned to shut the windows. The pinching voices were muffled, dulled, still waded through and lingered between the folds of the curtains, between the dust motes.

Some nights, he watched the dancing lights on the ceiling and tried to piece together the story outside: the pale headlights of a car passing, the thin voice of a young girl, singing—comma’d with hiccups and scattered laughter—a bar closing, drunken groans and staggering footsteps nearing and then fading away. Some nights he couldn’t sleep and he thought, quietly, _what the hell—_ turned his head and looked outside the window. The lights were always smudged, as though they were voices and dampened, somehow. Soft by the edges, like halos. The last warmth of a fallen star.

Then Draco happened, and he couldn’t sleep in Harry’s flat. And Harry couldn’t sleep in Draco’s flat because the silence was too empty, too deafening, Draco’s bedroom engulfed in the middle of the night amidst the endless rolling hills of Wiltshire—Harry’s flat too loud, too human. And when Draco couldn’t sleep Harry couldn’t sleep, either, drifting in and out of consciousness as Draco stirred and sighed and shifted and sighed again, a small movement of the shoulder. A turn of his head, the cotton pillowcase rustled against his soft cheek.

They woke up in the morning with dark shadows underneath their eyes. Touched the small patch of skin, tender and bruised, and laughed. Kissed, every two days or three.

Their cottage was close by the sea. Every night the waves rocked them to sleep, slow and steady.

***

He had no idea how to set up a hammock and only realized it the moment he was setting it up.

He stared helplessly at the tangle of ropes and the piece of cloth, flattened onto the ground and creasing at the edges. It didn’t help much. The band of beige folded compliantly along the bumps of the ground, a little hill of its own, an angle too sharp at the corners.

There wasn’t a manual for the hammock.

Harry sighed and walked into the house for the telephone.

***

“You could have Apparated,” Draco said over dinner. He’d cooked French onion soup and baked bread to go with it, tearing it into tiny, bite-sized pieces with long fingers, dipping them into the soup.

Harry’s was chewing, voice muffled through a mouthful of bread. “What?”

“The day you bought the hammock. You could have Apparated home with it, there was no need to carry it all the way from town.”

“There were Muggles.”

“If you’d found time for a levitation charm I’m sure you could have Apparated.”

“Anyhow,” Harry swallowed, “it’s here now. No need to go back in time and chastise me, eh?”

He never used to like French onion soup. Rather, he’d never had it, but he thought he wouldn’t have liked it much had he tried. But Draco cooked well, which was unsurprising because he had always been good at potions, but at the same time surprising because he cooked Muggle and, well, Harry felt like he should have been the one who cooked better since he had been cooking practically his whole life.

“It would have been more clever,” Draco insisted. “You could have caught a cold, sweating and taking off your jacket like that. It’s April.”

“I thought we’ve established you’re the clever one,” Harry said.

Draco blinked. His fingers paused in the middle of tearing the bread. When he resumed, his cheeks were flushed pink and he looked just a little pleased, dipping the piece into the soup. Scooping up onions with it, placing the bread into his mouth and chewed.

Harry hummed. Dipped his bread into the soup and scooped up onions, an echo of Draco’s movements.

***

They looked for houses together for a good while. Harry wasn’t so sure they were going to stay together for that long, then; wasn’t so sure they were going to move in together, were going to live together, were going to fall asleep together in the same bed at night and, in the morning, groggily brush their teeth in front of the bathroom mirror together.

But they couldn’t sleep. More importantly, Draco couldn’t sleep, since he kept insisting they stay at Harry’s, knowing Harry couldn’t sleep in his house. _Let’s sleep at yours,_ he’d say.

Harry would ask, _But couldn’t we go to yours? We slept at mine last time._

_I want to sleep at yours._

Harry couldn’t say _No,_ couldn’t say _you’re only doing this for me,_ because Draco wouldn’t have anyone know he was secretly very sweet. Draco woke up with shadows under his eyes still, smiling tiredly every morning, and Harry could no longer laugh when he touched the soft, bruised skin.

It took a good while looking for houses. Time floated by; Harry liked most houses but didn’t particularly feel for any, so Draco kept saying _how about we wait a while longer_ —eyes down-cast and cheeks flushed, pulling at the seems of his shirt, as though abashed, as though worried that Harry would find him annoying. Harry sat him down one day and, wrapping his hands around Draco’s, said, very slowly, _It’s a serious thing, buying a house._

Draco looked away, squirming.

 _So we should do it very carefully._ Harry pulled Draco’s knotted fingers apart and spread them, took each hand into his own. Folded, the way a knight would a maiden’s before he kissed her knuckles. _We should take our time with it, you know._

But then Draco stepped into the cottage and, standing in the parlor, ceased breathing altogether. It was two days earlier than what they’d scheduled; someone canceled, said the agent, if they wanted to visit now they could, she was in town but the keys were in a locked box under an empty flower pot. It had just rained, the sky not quite clear yet, hints of grey threading through the pale blue sky. Draco took a careful walk around the empty cottage, touching his finger to the frame of a wooden cabinet, the shell of a window. Harry found the backdoor and pushed through. It opened to a small patch of garden, the earth hard and bumpy, withered vines tangling all over the decrepit fences. The sea was near, the bay a smooth arch down the hills. It reminded Harry of Shell Cottage.

Draco found him by the backdoor. Harry showed him the sea, and they stood together silently, watching the waves push forth and pull back, tingeing the sand at the bay a shade darker, white foams scattering behind.

“I like it,” Draco said, so quietly he almost sounded frightened.

“You like it,” Harry echoed.

“It has a garden.”

“Do you garden?”

“I want to try,” Draco said. The wind carried the tumbling words away. Harry repeated it in his mind; _I want to try._ The more he said it the less it sounded like a mistake, like Draco hadn’t meant to say it and desperately wanted to take it back.

“We can grow tomatoes.” Harry pulled Draco close by the waist. “We can grow strawberries. Don’t you like strawberries?”

Draco let himself be pulled close, his warm body flush against Harry’s. It didn’t feel as cold, then, standing against the wind.

***

Hermione found him a manual (which she stole from online) with the simplest of steps, and it took Harry a full afternoon to set up the hammock. By the time he finished dusk had settled, a purple as soft as the petals of snapdragons blooming along the sky, veiling everything in soft shadows.

He secured the ropes with a couple spells, pulled at the knots—then wiped off the sweat on his face and headed back. The wind was soft, caressing his cheeks. His sweat dried in the cool breeze. He closed his eyes for just a brief moment, searching for the tint of salt in the air, the wind brushing through the damp tips of his hair.

He pulled the backdoor open. The air smelt of buttery pasta, smelt of rosemary. Kicking off his boots, Harry took a deep breath and smiled.

***

Two weeks after buying the cottage, Draco told him very quietly that he liked it because it reminded him of when he was six.

That was how he started it: _When I was six,_ and then fell silent in the dark. They were in their bedroom—empty except for the large bed against the center of one wall and a lamp, placed on the floor close to the windows. Some nights they left it on, casting warm, yellow light over the walls. Some nights they turned it off. It wasn’t that dark, really, the moon and the stars shining outside the window.

Harry smoothed Draco’s hair over his shoulder so it didn’t get into his mouth. His hair wasn’t all that long so it fell back, locks slipping and catching on the fabric of Draco’s pajamas. Harry nestled close still, his nose to Draco’s nape, an arm wrapped loosely around Draco’s midriff.

“When you were six,” he mumbled, a reminder.

“…When I was six,” Draco echoed, a moment later, “Mother brought me to Aunt Andromeda’s for the summer. Two weeks. Her house was close to the sea, then, and there was a little garden. It was all messy, you know, growing all over the place…the grass was taller than me, and I kept tripping over the vines.” A soft laugh. “Berries and flowers grew everywhere. I don’t think she planted them, even. I think the seeds just landed there and…and no one weeded them, so they just grew.”

Harry nuzzled. Draco shifted, pulling the covers up his bare shoulder. “Mother had tea with Aunt Andromeda every afternoon, and I would steal the…the raspberries, making sure no one was watching. They were so plump and huge, the size of my hands—a child’s hands, the raspberries growing all over the fences. I ate and ate and they stained all my shirts pink. I ate so much that I felt sick, so much that for the next year I couldn’t eat raspberries at all.” A small huff of laughter. “Mother knew, I think. She always had that look about her. Like she didn’t know whether to be mad or exasperated.”

“We don’t have to weed,” Harry mumbled into the nook of Draco’s neck. Draco laughed softly.

“Then the tomatoes shall all get strangled and you shan’t get your tomato soup, Harry.”

Dopily, Harry nestled closer. Under the covers Draco found his hand and linked their fingers together, tips to tips.

***

If he was being honest, he bought the hammock because he had never slept in the open like that—as though he had the right to do so, as though he could drift into his dreams without constant vigilance. It was thrilling, a little daring, to lie in the open and close his eyes and let his shoulders loosen, his muscles unwind. The urge to jump thrummed through his veins and his eyelids twitched, restless, until his body was lulled into drowsing off.

Had he still lived in Private Drive, Uncle Vernon would have beaten him to the cupboard and back already.

He let the thought slip away. The hammock rocked gently in the wind; June was here, and the air bloomed with warmth, sending away the last of the lingering cold drizzles. On the other side of the garden Draco was working, a straw hat on his head, hustling through the plants. Every now and then he murmured to himself, voice disarrayed in the wind.

Harry folded his arms behind his head and drifted off.

***

Still, it was surprising to find Draco sleeping on the hammock. He had been looking for him. The kettle on the stove was still warm, the tea left to draw; next to it was a bowl with strawberries cut into neat little cubes, the porcelain stained pink with juice.

He’d listened first for the bathroom. Then he looked for him in the kitchen, the living room, the garden—walked through the rows of tomato vines, the berries and the flowers, trudged through the bushes of rosemary and thyme, batting away the thin branches as he passed the short fruit trees—and finally he found Draco on the hammock, blond hair glinting in the early morning sun.

Harry touched a finger to his shoulder and then bent down to kiss his cheek. Draco turned, making a soft noise—pleased, humming. His skin was warm from the June air.

“What are you doing?” Harry murmured. His mouth found Draco’s hair and kissed, messily, strands of hair catching at the corners of his lips.

Draco smiled. “Napping.”

“Didn’t you just wake up?”

“A man can never take too many naps.”

“Mm,” Harry agreed. “Let me in.”

“What,” Draco laughed. “There’s not enough space in here!”

“Use an expansion charm.”

“Those are very exquisite, I’ll have you know, takes a whole fifteen minutes to do one—”

“Scoot over, then.”

Draco laughed again. Talked about how this was impossible, Harry was impossible, this was probably his plan all along, coming for him through the morning mist with his hair tousled, gauzy shirt opening at his chest…and flushed all over his face as he squeezed into one side of the hammock. Harry climbed, grip tight as he hoisted himself, the hammock swaying violently under his weight—and threw himself in, landing with a sharp noise in the ropes.

“You almost killed both of us,” Draco said, laughing. Harry pretended to tackle him and Draco squeaked, squirmed, laughed some more—the ropes squealing—let Harry wrap his arms around him and maneuver them both to face the sea. Draco smelt faintly of strawberries, sweet and warm in the dancing sunlight.

“You were cooking strawberry tea,” Harry said, out of the blue.

“Mm, you saw.”

“You smell sweet.”

“Don’t we all,” Draco said. Harry was ready to say it didn’t make any sense, but then Draco turned and kissed him chastely on the mouth. He tasted like strawberries, too.

“You were eating them while you cooked the tea,” Harry murmured.

Draco laughed and turned back to face the sea. The wind rocked the hammock and they swayed, together, to the rhythm of the waves.


End file.
